The Gendered Allocation of Digital Parenting Work

• In Event: Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 8. Influencers & families

Abstract

The physical, cognitive, and emotional labor of attending to family life is largely performed by women. At the same time, technology is increasingly implicated in the reproduction of family life. Yet we know little about how technology might reallocate the responsibility for performing household duties. We address this question by examining the gendered allocation of digital parenting work. Using data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. parents of adolescent children, we explore mothers’ and fathers’ use of mobile technologies that allow them to digitally access information about their child’s location. We find that mothers are more likely to perform this type of digital parenting labor. We also find that employed mothers are more likely to access their children’s digital location than unemployed mothers, but that fathers’ employment status is not associated with their likelihood of performing this type of digital parenting labor. These findings suggest that digital parenting work aligns with existing frameworks for understanding the broader gendered distribution of parenting work and cognitive household labor. Moreover, these findings suggest that digital parenting might comprise an additional form of parental labor expected of working mothers.

Authors

• Sarah Elizabeth Farr, University of Michigan

• Denise L. Anthony, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor